Indigenous Language Programs in South Australian Schools: Issues, Dilemmas and Solutions
March 2002
Dr Rob Amery
The Unaipon School
University of South Australia
1
This project was commissioned by the Office of the Board of Studies.
The views expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the views
of the Office of the Board of Studies.
1
Indigenous Language Programs in South Australian Schools: Issues, Dilemmas and Solutions
Dr Rob Amery
The Unaipon School
University of South Australia
March 2002
Whilst there are many similarities between the situation of Indigenous languages in New South Wales and South Australia, there are some important differences. One obvious difference is the presence and influence of Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara and related dialects in South Australia, which are amongst the ‘strongest’ and most widely spoken languages in the country. But South Australia also has a range of languages spanning the entire spectrum. As in NSW, some of these languages are undergoing something of a revival through efforts in schools and community language projects.
Indigenous Languages in South Australian Schools
Indigenous languages had a role within schools from the very early days of the colony of South Australia with the establishment of the school at Piltawodli on the banks of the Torrens River on December 23 1839. German missionaries, Christian Teichelmann and Clamor Schürmann, and later Samuel Klose taught Kaurna children to read and write and to recite prayers and sing hymns in their own language.
Throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century, other South Australian languages were taught in mission schools. These include Ramindjeri at Encounter Bay (1840s), Parnkalla (Barngarla) at Port Lincoln (1849), Yaralde at Raukkan, otherwise known as Point McLeay, (1857) and Dieri (Diyari) at Kilalpaninna (1867) in the state’s northeast and finally Pitjantjatjara at Ernabella Mission in 1940[1].
Pitjantjatjara programs expanded into other communities in the northwest of the state in the 1960s and 1970s[2] as new communities were established and school programs introduced. The Dunstan Labor government adopted bilingual education policies in 1965/66 and, over time, engaged several linguists in the production of some Pitjantjatjara language materials (p.c. Bill Edwards, March 2002). In 1985 the state government gave additional support through the appointment of a linguist, teacher linguist and Anangu literacy workers, and the establishment of a Literature Production Centre at Ernabella. Primers, readers and a community newspaper for all the schools in the northwest (Pipalyatjara, Amata, Ernabella, Fregon, Mimili and Indulkana) were produced at this centre. These programs ceased in 1992 following demand by the Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara Education Council for English-only programs[3].
It wasn’t till the late 1970s that Indigenous languages were first introduced into the wider educational arena. A number of teachers who had taught in the northwest introduced Pitjantjatjara into schools in Victor Harbor and Adelaide, while others did the same in Port Augusta. Some of these programs were ad hoc and short-lived being entirely dependent on the particular teacher who implemented them; others have been more sustained over time. The Victor Harbor program, for example, has been a one hour per week, elective of one-term’s duration, offered each year to one of the year seven classes at the school prior to an exchange visit to Fregon, for over two decades[4]. The Adelaide programs have been delivered as broader, school based Languages programs. Alberton has offered its Pitjantjatjara second language learning program continuously, to the entire student body, through the Languages Learning Area, since 1988. Alberton is one of the many departmental schools to have sought program stability and withstood the negative impact of staff turnovers by actively recruiting teachers and Aboriginal Language and Cultural Specialists who can continue the teaching and learning[5]. Despite this, program success does remain dependent on individuals to a large degree. However, in education generally, and in Indigenous education in particular, languages included, personal relations mean much to program success, and the role of individuals is not likely to change in this regard.
It is only comparatively recently that languages other than Pitjantjatjara have been considered for teaching in schools. In the mid to late 1980s Ngarrindjeri and Narrunga language kits were produced (Kirke, 1987) and workshops were held to support the introduction of revival programs. Most of these early attempts to introduce revival programs in Ngarrindjeri and Narungga were short-lived due to unresolved orthography issues and criticism of the materials by community members. Kaurna programs first introduced in 1989-1990, were more durable, as was a Ngarrindjeri program taught in Adelaide[6]. Kaurna programs will be discussed in more detail later in this paper.
In recent years there has been strong and sustained growth of Indigenous language programs in South Australian schools. In 2001, nine of South Australia’s Indigenous languages were taught in 84 programs at 62 sites to more than 3,000 students of which nearly half were Indigenous (Wilson & Tunstill, 2001).
Despite this growth, the recent relocation of just two teachers from Adelaide to Anangu schools on the Pitjantjatjara-Yankunytjatjara (P-Y) lands shows the extreme fragility and vulnerability of these programs. The loss of these two persons has resulted in the cessation of the Pitjantjatjara program at Alberton Primary, Adelaide High and several other schools. Programs in the two named locations were especially important in terms of the profile of Indigenous languages in schools. The Alberton program was one in which the School Council had elected to teach Pitjantjatjara as the school language to all children alongside of a Russian mother tongue program. Usually Indigenous languages are taught as the mother tongue programs alongside of another major language taught to all children. At Adelaide High School Pitjantjatjara was being taught in a Stage 1 program at Year 11. Both these schools remain committed to delivering Pitjantjatjara programs. Hopefully this gap will be addressed during 2002, or in 2003.
Curriculum Initiatives
The development of Indigenous language learning materials began in the tertiary sector with the preparation and teaching in the late 1960s of a three-week language-laboratory style course in Pitjantjatjara, designed for people who wanted to learn the language in preparation for work in the Pitjantjatjara lands. The publication of Wangka Kulintjaku (Kirke, 1984) and Wangka Wiru. A handbook for the Pitjantjatjara language learner (Eckert & Hudson, 1988) represents a major development in the provision of language learning materials. The language in these resources is oriented towards the ways in which Pitjantjatjara is spoken within the P-Y lands. Curriculum materials for schools first appeared with the publication of Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara Stage A – Years R-2 (DETE, 1994a; 1994b). By contrast with Wangka Kulintjaku and Wangka Wiru the language used in the Pitjantjatjara Stage A curriculum is pitched at usage within the context of schools and urban Australia. Numerous loanwords for colours (such as puluwana ‘blue’) and school items (such as ruula ‘ruler’) are included. Western fruits (such as kiripitja ‘grapes’) appear alongside of bush foods (such as kampurarpa ‘bush raisin’) (DETE, 1994: 42). Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara curriculum Stage B – Years 3-5and Stage 2 Years 6-9 have also been written and exist in draft form (DETE, forthcoming a; forthcoming b; forthcoming c; forthcoming d)). In addition, a Pitjantjatjara Schools’ Songbook (EDSA, n.d.) has been in use over the last two decades and has proved to be extremely popular. Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara audio or audiovisual materials have not been produced for use in the school sector. The only language learning tapes are those used in association with the Pitjantjatjara course at UniSA (discussed later). Numerous video resources have been produced by Ernabella Video and Television (EVTV) for internal consumption in the P-Y Lands. Some of these are useful resources for school programs. Also a major archiving project, Ara Iritja, is underway in Adelaide. This project has amassed a huge resource of photographic, written, audio and video material, some of which would be useful in the production of school-oriented resources.
Arabana and Adnyamathanha syllabus frameworks are currently being published through the department’s Curriculum Directorate after the intense involvement of speakers of the two languages in the development phase; along with two generic print texts and the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara syllabus frameworks, these are the main (Aboriginal Languages Update, No.1 March, 2002: 2). Draft syllabus frameworks are already well-advanced. Syllabus frameworks for other languages taught are yet to be written, though local materials and program outlines exist.
The Australian Indigenous Languages Framework
The Senior Secondary Assessment Board of South Australia (SSABSA) commenced work in 1993 to introduce Indigenous languages into senior secondary education. The Australian Indigenous Languages Framework was a national initiative and in 1994 several languages in South Australia, Victoria and the Northern Territory were taught for the first time in accredited programs at senior secondary level. Languages taught included ‘strong’ languages such as Pitjantjatjara, Eastern Arrernte and Yolngu Matha, but also languages in revival mode, including Kaurna in South Australia and Yorta Yorta in Victoria. The role that AILF programs can play in strengthening and maintaining Indigenous languages is discussed in Mercurio & Amery (1996).
The AIL Framework (SSABSA, 1996a) is a truly innovative curriculum initiative that laid down a blueprint for the teaching of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. It established a range of program types to accommodate the entire spectrum of Australian Indigenous language situations. The Framework is supported by illustrative programs (SSABSA, 1996b) and a textbook (SSABSA, 1996c).
To this point in time there are still only a handful of AILF programs operating in Australia, mainly due to a lack of teachers and resources. Also at senior secondary level there is intense competition between elective subjects and timetabling restrictions might prevent students from studying Australian Indigenous languages. One recent AILF innovation, the intensive Stage One summer school held in December 2001 is worthy of serious consideration in the NSW context. This program is discussed in more detail below.
The basic principles of AILF have been adopted by TAFE in Queensland and by the junior years of education in South Australia. However, because AILF was developed specifically for senior secondary level there is little by way of a progression of learning. It is designed to accommodate learners with no prior study or exposure to Indigenous languages.
Intensive Stage 1 Year 11 AILF program
In December 2001, SSABSA ran an intensive Stage 1 Australian Indigenous Languages summer school focussing on three target languages:- Pitjantjatjara, Ngarrindjeri and Kaurna. This course was attended by about 20 students from a range of schools, mostly spread across the metropolitan area, but also from some outlying areas such as Ceduna on the West Coast.
This model of program delivery has the huge advantage in that it gives access to students who are enrolled at schools where Indigenous language programs are not offered. Many Indigenous students are scattered across a range of metropolitan and country schools as lone individuals or in small groups. Most of these schools have no chance of ever being able to offer an AIL program, at least not in the short term.
National LOTE Statement and Profile
The national Statement and Profile for Languages Other Than English was an attempt to define the Languages (or Languages Other Than English as it was known then) Learning Area. Whilst Indigenous languages are addressed to some extent in the Statement, this curriculum initiative failed to address the needs of revival programs within the Profile[7]. Despite appeals from individuals working with Indigenous languages to consider other aspects of language use, the LOTE Profile focussed exclusively on communication goals, reflecting the ideology of the Australian Language Levels (ALL) guidelines (Scarino et al, 1988).
South Australian Curriculum Standards and Accountability (SACSA)
The South Australian Curriculum Standards and Accountability framework (DETE, 2001) outlines scope and standards for each of the eight Learning Areas that drive the curriculum in South Australia, from Birth to 10[8]. It broadened the focus of language learning to include Understanding Language and Understanding Culture strands, in addition to Communication. SACSA built on the Pathways Project Scope and Sequence which outlined a flexible sequence of the learning specified in the LOTE Statement and Profile (Curriculum Corporation, 1994). SACSA has fixed a set of standards applicable at various stages throughout the years of schooling. In 2001 Angela Scarino of the School of International Studies at UniSA obtained additional funding to develop Scope and Standards for Non-Alphabetic Languages (Chinese and Japanese) and for Australian Indigenous Languages. Both these sets of languages were not served well by the existing document. Subsequently a small team of curriculum writers and researchers worked to develop an Australian Indigenous Languages Scope and Standards document (DETE, forthcoming e) that is to be an integral part of the South Australian Curriculum, Standards and Accountability Framework. As the name suggests, the document sets out to specify the scope of the area of learning covered by Australian Indigenous Languages programs in South Australian schools, and to set year-level based standards that teachers in these programs should teach to, and more particularly standards that learners should achieve, at the different year levels from Reception to Year 10. The document also includes an introductory section which contextualises the teaching and learning of Indigenous languages and informs the reader about a range of issues therein.
Given that the AIL SACSA materials are by their nature generic for all of the (currently) nine Aboriginal languages offered through department programs, the approach taken has perhaps inevitably resulted in the development of an ‘idealised’ set of standards for a second language Indigenous languages program. The challenge for the immediate future will be the development of language specific interpretations of the generic standards. In South Australia at the present time curriculum development is described as being a ‘seamless’, ongoing process of curriculum renewal, and the opportunity to pursue such language specific elucidations will be presented. The scope and standards described in the AIL SACSA materials may not be achievable at the present time by the majority of programs[9], but ideally would be attainable at a later date as the program grew and developed and as resources were produced. In the interim, it will be up to the respective program planners to determine what is achievable for their particular program at this point in time.
My own misgivings about the idealised set of standards were conveyed to the consultants who prepared the report on the Draft document (Erebus, 2001: 25). I wrote that:
I am not convinced that the document takes the best approach by choosing to set out the scope and standards for an idealised Indigenous second language program. Is this the best way to guide the numerous language revival programs that operate in different languages, each with a different set of available resources, operating in different contexts? Some of these languages are changing rapidly as they develop and grow. Languages are never static, but in some of these language revival contexts, language change is both quantitatively and qualitatively different to other language contexts.
The pragmatic approach taken by the writers, in specifying just one set of statements for all Indigenous language programs, is realistically all that is possible. But I think we should bear in mind the need for detailed research and syllabus development in each of the Indigenous languages taught in schools. This syllabus and program development is the real priority. The scope and standards must be allowed to grow out of the programs themselves. They must reflect the reality of both what is, and what is possible.
I really don’t think, that at the current stage of development of language, programs and teachers, we can expect the Australian Indigenous Languages Document to achieve much more than it does. We should probably now put this document aside ….. and get on with the real work of developing the programs themselves.
Whilst there are some benefits to be derived from the work on the SACSA project, this project did not grow out of concerns identified as priorities by those closest to Indigenous languages programs. This is a constant problem. Demands by education systems that are driven by mainstream concerns detract from urgent work that is most needed by the programs. A consequence of this can be that communities lose faith in departments and the people who work within them, and that departments thus lose critical contributors, typically older people[10].
The Teaching of Kaurna
Kaurna is the language of Adelaide and the Adelaide Plains. It was documented reasonably well by German missionaries in the mid nineteenth century. They produced a sketch grammar and vocabulary (Teichelmann & Schürmann, 1840) and a more extensive vocabulary with hundreds of translated sentences (Teichelmann, 1857). Several short texts written by Kaurna children educated in the school at Piltawodli on the banks of the Torrens River have also been discovered (see Amery, 2000: 97-100).